Kevin

geopolitics | investing | software | studier of incentives

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

We tried the "give everyone a check" approach during covid and it accomplished absolutely nothing long term except to contribute to inflation

[Spetsnaℤ 007 🇷🇺 @Alex_Oloyede2]

They would all be dead in a single FAB strike. No modern military with drone training still conducts operation in such open style.

[Santiago @svpino]

So, you are building something that will kill us all.

But you don't quit. Instead, you accelerate.

And you are weeks away from an IPO that will make everyone working on this killer technology rich beyond imagination.

Am I too dumb to understand this? How can we see you as the good guys and not a profit-seeking-at-all-costs evil organization?

[Ivan Katchanovski @I_Katchanovski]

To the last Ukrainian: German Foreign Minister: "We also have expectations of Ukraine — including calling up men capable of defending the country. We can provide data. We know who lives here, who receives social benefits, who is registered here and who has residency status.

I do believe these men can be contacted, and perhaps they could receive letters from the Ukrainian government saying that they are supposed to be called up."

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

What a time to be alive: Germany aims to develop the largest military in Europe, and the Europeans are cheering it on. Germany's political class is in full consensus in its enthusiasm for the war with Russia, with only the "far-right" party in opposition. The new reincarnation of Hitler who leads this racist 'Nazi party' opposing the war, Alice Weidel, is a lesbian woman with a Sri Lankan partner. Merz fully supports the genocide in Gaza, argues that Israel is "doing our dirty work" by attacking Iran, wants to take the lead in the proxy war against Russia, and defends democracy by crushing dissent. When the US destroyed Nord Stream, Germany blamed Russia. When the US provided subsidies that incentivised uncompetitive German companies to move to the US, Germany blamed Russia for its deindustrialisation. When the US threatened to annex Greenland, Merz responded by warning about a Russian threat to Greenland. Germany is now attempting to reverse its deindustrialisation with a booming military budget. In the First World War, Germany framed its military actions that resulted in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as liberating Ukraine from Moscow, while in reality Germany was establising its dominance over the region. In the Second World War, Germany yet again claimed to liberate Ukraine from Moscow, while actually treating it as an imperial conquest. This time around, Germany "liberated Ukraine" by toppling its democratically-elected government against the will of the majority of Ukrainians to convert it into a frontline state in an anti-Russian military alliance. Germany supported the brutality against Donbas and the purging of Ukraine's dissenting political opposition, opposition media, Russian language, and the Orthodox Church. The Minsk peace agreement negotiated by Germany was admitted to be a fraud to prepare Ukraine for war, and Germany is pumping in weapons. While most Ukrainians want a negotiated settlement, Germany boycotts diplomacy, pushes to deport Ukrainian refugees, and to conscript Ukrainian women to keep the war going - all under the slogan of "standing with Ukraine". Yet, the electoral defeat of Merz and his policies is framed as a threat to democracy and any criticism of make you a traitor who spreads Russian propaganda. How will this end?

[Apostolos Pistolas @appistol]

Shocked by Belgrade. Charmed by Damascus.

[Marta Havryshko @HavryshkoMarta]

“This is how I’m seeing [my husband] Hrysha off [to war]. Lord, save him and keep him safe!” a woman cries, pointing at a bus packed with forcibly mobilized men.

As you can see, every one of them is in handcuffs.

Zelensky’s Ukraine of the “Four Freedoms” — with freedom arriving, quite literally, in chains.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

This was all done by the candidate for House Speaker whom AOC supports: Hakeem Jeffries, one of the most loyal foot soldiers for AIPAC, Israel and endless war in all of Washington.

This is the Democratic Party:

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

Ukraines new Defence minister Khmara, standing in front of a map of "Greater Ukraine" at a Neo Nazi Azov HQ (first visit of his new role)

Sizable tracts of present day Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania are depicted as "Ukrainian"

This was posted on the Ukrainian MOD site

[Patrick Henningsen @21WIRE]

Well, this is not surprising. Pretty obvious this was another cheap false flag stunt by NATO to keep the war agenda on track…

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Not only have German authorities not provided any evidence of Russian involvement in the “Leipzig drone incident” to the public; they apparently haven’t even provided any evidence to other EU governments. One might conclude that the evidence simply doesn’t exist.

[Leonid Ragozin @leonidragozin]

Fun to see all those embracing and whitewashing Azov suddenly up in arms against the “neo-nazi” AfD.

The problem with these pseudo-liberals is that their value system is confined to geopolitical (that is, imperialist) choices. The rest is for the show.

What’s the real difference between Merz or Green Party warmongers on the one hand and AfD on the other, apart from stylistic?

Both are the product of political and cultural degeneration and both excel in just one thing - promoting polarisation, conflict.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

@realLandsEnd Exercise is good, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Telling people that exercise is fascism is…[fill in whatever word you prefer that isn’t ableist].

[Aaron Maté @aaronjmate]

Ukraine negotiated much more favorable terms for itself in Istanbul in April 2022. I hope that those who encouraged Zelensky to walk away — and the many more people who denied that this happened — reflect on how much death and suffering could have been prevented:

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

It's completely unsurprising that the CEO of Flock is telling the public to give up privacy rights while vehemently safeguarding his own privacy.

Big Tech tycoons have been doing exactly this for years, the worst cases being former Google CEO Eric Schmitt and Mark Zuckerberg:

[AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 @AMK_Mapping_]

@MFA_Ukraine Russia is winning this war by almost all available metrics.

Ignoring the uncomfortable realities and underestimating your enemy only makes the situation even worse.

[Oleksandr Dubinskyi @Dubinsky_pro]

European politicians are now in the same position as Zelensky - they cannot afford for the war to end. Because the end of the war is a kind of final reckoning, when the books will have to be balanced: how much money was spent, how many lives were lost, and what was ultimately achieved.

And if it turns out that after more than four years of bloodshed, hundreds of billions spent, and tens of thousands of lives lost, the terms of peace are worse than those offered in Istanbul in 2022, someone will have to answer for it - politically, at the very least.

And given that governments in most European countries are already barely clinging to power, a Ukrainian fiasco would effectively mean the end of their political careers.

So they keep dragging things out - especially since they themselves do not have to fight for Ukraine to the last Ukrainian. They are stalling in the hope that somehow, eventually, things will sort themselves out. Maybe Ukraine will cease to exist altogether - that outcome would suit them just fine as well. Anything but formally acknowledging defeat.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This 👇 is insane and really illustrates how far France has fallen.

France's Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, now says that anyone "who is distrustful of the European Union" is basically a useful idiot for Putin.

The implication being that distrust or criticism of the EU is not a legitimate democratic position anymore but a form of collaboration with "the enemy."

Which is absolutely insane given France's recent history: De Gaulle was famously opposed to the very kind of supranational Europe that the EU has become, and so have been a number of major French political figures both on the right (like Philippe Séguin) or the left (like Jean-Pierre Chevènement).

Not to mention the 55% of French voters who rejected the EU Constitution in 2005 (and whose vote was ignored because that very constitution was adopted later on regardless under the Treaty of Lisbon).

In effect, by Barrot's criteria - heck, by the current French government criteria since he is speaking as the government's Foreign Minister - De Gaulle, Séguin, Chevènement and 55% of the French population would be classified as Russian agents 🤦

The craziest aspect of it, if you take a step back, is that, fundamentally, people like De Gaulle who opposed EU integration did so because they cared first and foremost about France - about its independence, its sovereignty, its right to govern itself.

Calling that a form of foreign allegiance is just absurd and a complete inversion of reality: love of country and patriotism is being rebranded as treason.

More worryingly, this also shows the current state of the "democratic debate" in France, which is neither democratic, nor a debate.

Not democratic because this is the French government treating legitimate and reasonable positions as treason.

And not a debate because there's nothing left to debate: the EU has become a dogma, and distrust of it has become disloyalty and taboo.

One can legitimately be afraid that this is the road to a form of totalitarian ideology across Europe, dressed up as centrism, where the only acceptable position is unquestioning loyalty to supranational institutions whose defenders, tellingly, would rather question the patriotism of their critics than submit themselves to the verdict of the people.

[Kyle Beckley @Kyle_Beckley]

A reality show where Lindsay Clancy babysits her supporters toddlers unsupervised.

[Kevin @nyc_k]

@grok @BartleyBurnside @unusual_whales If part of the thesis is an ex-Nike exec as CEO, I’d pass. Nike itself is swirling down the drain.